Gophers & the Hawaiian Style Band

byLorraineonDecember 1, 2008

Awright, there’s no avoiding making more gopher cages. I promptly dug up the three Salvias and re-potted them in the original plastic containers which I had saved. You know? Recycling? I knew that digging them up wouldn’t hurt them, since I had only planted them the previous week and this needed to be done, otherwise the gopher would kill them.

Then I went to the hardware store and bought some chicken wire and persuaded myself that I would be up to the challenge of making more gopher cages. At least I didn’t have to make 200 again which was a consoling thought as I only had to make a few this time, at least that’s what I’m hoping.

I hauled out my trusty folding table into the driveway. Got my wire cutters, gloves and water. No Merlot this time although I certainly thought about it but instead I listened to music.

I love Hawaiian music, slack key guitar and what’s really cool, “Jiamiian” music. Kinda of a mixture of Reggae and Hawaiian music and I grooved away, (No Hula) happily cutting and rolling the chicken wire until I had enough cages to deal with my rodent problem.

Then I replanted the Salvias in their new “cages”, watered them a bit and felt assured that the toothy varmints couldn’t reach the roots.

During the same weekend, I put in a few more new plants in the area between my driveway and my neighbors’ driveway. This isn’t a very large area and I didn’t get to it last Winter when I did the my garden originally, so I decided to do something with it now. Naturally, in my choice of plants, I included some Salvias and one of my favorites, Coyote Mint (Mondardella odoratissima)and Blue-Eyed Grass (sisyrinchium bellum) which are both low growing and very attractive with their flowers.

It’s complete now and I’m hopeful that I will be successful with this new area, as I haven’t had good luck with plants that I’ve tried to growthere before. Other than some Lions Tail, everything seems to die. I’m wondering if the problem might be the three trees in the area or if possibly the Lions Tail isn’t compatable with other plants.

I dunno. I’ll just have to see what happens.

I also over seeded the area with some wildflower seeds as well and I noticed today, there seems to be some seeds that that are sprouting in the main garden, which I had previously seeded a week ago. I’m surprised to see anything so fast, but obviously the rain helped them along, followed by a warm, sunny day.